Put A Star On Your Chart

Remember how when you were a kid they had those charts with chores and you got a star if you did one of your chores?  Yeah I never had one but I sarcastically tell Nick to "Put a star on his chart" every time he does something useful.  However, lately I seem to have become a nagging wife.  I dunno where it came from but out of nowhere I just can't stop myself from nagging him.  It's like word vomit.  I don't mean to be so irritating - I swear.  But seriously I just wish that we had a clean house and when he is playing computer games our house is not getting clean.  And to be honest I get a little bitter.  I know I'm not the only one here....

However, Nick swears he does the same if not more than me!  Therefore I devised...

Put A Star On your Chart!  

The DeCourcy Family Chore Sheet

It's an excel document to keep track of who's done what.  Annnnnnnd it really brings out the competitive side of him.  Which is totally useful.  Oh no honey I can't believe you've scored higher than me on the chore chart again!  Damn it *wink*wink*

The chore chart is in trial stages at the moment but if you think such a chart could help you deal with your lazy husband/wife/life partner, let me know and I will share it with you on google docs.   

Oh and also I would like to give a shout out to my favorite of all housewives (even if she isn't technically a wife) Martha Stewart for creating some stellar cleaning charts, which mine is loosely based off of.  

Come See My Green House!!

Hey Friends,

Check this out.

Nick and I found this little greenhouse at the grocery store for only £25 (score!) 

and we put it together yesterday.

It's not the most classy looking green house ever, but whatever - 

even Martha Stewart had to start somewhere.  

Anyways, come on in!

It's actually quite cozy inside, 

and I let my little seed babies spend their first day out today. tear...

(Momma's got separation anxiety...)  

Until now they've been growing in the kitchen.

I still have to bring them in at night, in case they get too cold, 

but I am so pleased with their progress.

And the fact that it appears I may in deed have a green thumb!

Here are my tomatoes and sweet peppers.

We also have eggplant, strawberries, mint, basil, and tomatillos growing now.

And here are my little carrots.

They got attacked by some weird green fly thing,

 but I went on a crazy fly slaughter and killed them all....

with my bare hands.

Ahem.... anyways my carrots seem to be growing pretty well now, 

and there are no more flies brave enough to hang out around here.

So yeah I've become a crazy gardening lady. 

But I'm just so excited to eat something that I have grown.

I've got so much more to plant in the next few months that

Nick is worried we are going to run out of room.

But there is a plot of land behind our house that is totally overgrown and unused

so I am plotting to make a little vegetable plot there.  

(Overuse of the word plot?)

Nick is also worried (notice a trend here?)

 that this is trespassing, but seriously, what are they gonna do?

Arrest us for growing corn?

If they do....

 I'll have to sacrifice one of my phallic vegetables to a place where the sun doesn't shine.  

So be it.  

Hope you had a fabulous weekend.

Winter Wonderland Fun!

I had the most fabulous day today!

We've been getting a couple little taste testers of snow, 

but this morning we woke up to the real deal.

Luckily, (or unluckily) today was my first day of funemployment again

 after my 5 week stint of being temporarily employed, but to be honest, 

I couldn't have had a better day!

I bundled up and the Doodle and I had the most beautiful winter wonderland walk.  

Nick warned me not to bring my camera 

because I'd probably fall and drop it and break it.  

I told him I've never fallen in the woods and I just couldn't resist... 

I just had to share it with you!  

Note: I got bulldozed over by a huge boxer dog Heidi was playing with.  

I fell and I hit my head pretty hard, don't worry I'm fine, but karma is a bitch, no?

I'm sorry I always take pictures of my dog, but she is a pretty good model.  

And by good model I mean I've taught her to sit and stay....

The rest of the day I went back to my Martha Stewart ways.

 I've been cooking up a delicious storm.  More on that later.  

Also the carpet fitters came today, which means our house seems half livable!  

I've never been so excited about carpet in my life.  

And I painted the bedroom wall with glitter!!!  

I promise to share all these things soon.  Ahhhh the cliffhangers!

Hope your day was plenty fun too!

A Mini Herb Garden

Ever since we moved here I've been wanting to plant a few herbs for cooking purposes.  Any food snob knows that having your own herb garden is pretty much essential.  Buying the herbs fresh from the grocery store is so expensive and some always go to waste.  But if they're planted the herbs will last ages.  So today Nick and I headed to our local nursery to pick up everything we need to create fresh and delicious spring dishes.  Carrying everything home without a car was pretty rough, but luckily my big super musclely husband carried the pot home!  Oh and all together, the compost, plants, and pot only costs £20!  Not bad, eh?

From top left clockwise we have our major contenders, French Parsley, Oregano, Purple Sage, Moroccan Mint, and my personal favorite Chocolate Peppermint!  Oh my gosh does that stuff smell good!

We're still missing a few of the big players, like Rosemary and Basil, but we're only so buff you know.  Maybe next weekend.

I hope they grow super fast so we can start using them!

ps.  What are your thoughts on garden gnomes?  The nursery had tons of them!  They also had a snow white.  What do you think, snow white and the seven dwarfs - the perfect garden accessories?

My Peeps are Totally Failures!!

Hi Friends.  I need to apologize.  Last week I promised that I would have an amazing vegetarian peep recipe up and running.  Unfortunately, I've had a few pitfalls along the way.  I attempted to create vegetarian peeps using this recipe and this recipe, from who else - Martha Stewart of course!

Problem 1 : I needed to get my chubby little fingers on a candy thermometer.  Easier said than done.  After a couple days of fruitless searching, I ended up buying one off Amazon.

On Saturday it arrived so I headed to the kitchen with tons of enthusiasm!  I had purchased food coloring and a new piping set and I recruited the husband as sous chef and figured we would have great fun creating new peep animals.  I had an underwater theme in mind - peep octopus anyone???

First I used used my food coloring to color some sugar.  I only had red and yellow... But I do what I can.

Problem 2 : I added the gelling agent to the water.  I used agar flakes, to replace regular gelatin, and substituted them on a one to one ratio.  We didn't realize anything was wrong at this point, but looking back I don't think agar is a direct substitute for gelatin.

Next we boiled the sugar and water mixture, bringing it to the soft-ball stage as Martha instructs.

Check out our stove- how awful is that?

We took it off the heat, stirring, and then using a hand mixer to attempt to form soft marshmallowy peaks.

Problem 3 : Our hand mixer appears to have been made around the same time they invented electricity.  Thus, it doesn't move too fast, and no soft peaks were formed.  We transferred the syrupy mixture to our food processor with the whipping attachment in place, but no cigar.  We got a few bubbles in the syrup and thats pretty much it.

I'm totally devastated.  I feel like I lied to you, and I can't even eat my feelings with fresh peeps.  I just want to bite off their stale and delicious heads like the rest of omnivorous Christian society the week after Easter, but alas, I'm stuck with nothing more than a gooey pot of sugar water.  Martha has never let me down before, so I am blaming my appliances and agar gelatin replacement.  

I hope you can forgive me!!!

ps.  I found some gelatin free mallow recipes, but not for piping mallow, and none of them used agar.  I will be investigating this matter further.

Martha Comes for Easter

Ok so the homemaking goddess didn't actually make an appearance at our little home for Easter dinner, but she had a big influence nonetheless.  I adapted three of her recipes from the January issue of Martha Stewart Living for our fabulous dinner.  I'll post them in the order I made them because I think this is the best way... just in case you feel a surge of inspiration and want to make all three for a little Martha inspired Indian flavored feast.

Honey-Roasted Eggplant with Chiles

Ingredients

• 3 medium sized eggplants, cubed
• 2 Green chiles, sliced (note: Martha suggests 5, but we thought two was way more than enough heat we might've got the wrong chile)
• 1/4 cup honey
• 2 tablespoons olive oil

Preheat the oven to 425 F.  Toss all ingredients together in a baking dish and roast eggplant for about half an hour, tossing half way.  

Toasted Coconut Rice

Ingredients

• Olive Oil
• 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut
• 1 cup rice (she recommends basmati but we just used plain white rice)
• 2 cups water
• 3/4 tsp coarse salt
• 2 Scallions thinly sliced on the biased (we left these out)

Heat oil in saucepan over medium heat, add the coconut, toasting it for about 6 minutes until it just starts to brown.  Set aside two tablespoons of coconut for garnish later.  Stir one cup rice into the saucepan with the remaining coconut and add two cups water and 3/4 tsp of coarse salt.  Bring this to a boil, then reduce it to simmer, covering the pan and allowing the rice to absorb the water, about 20 minutes. Garnish with reserved coconut and scallions.  

Tofu Tikka Masala

(this recipe has been changed a lot from Martha's original - so I think I'll take credit for this one!)

Ingredients

• 1 pack of extra firm silken tofu
• 3 tablespoons of olive oil
• 1 large onion, diced
• 3 tablespoons freshly grated ginger (from about a 6 inch piece)
• 1 tablespoon pressed garlic
• 3 tablespoons tomato paste
• 2 teaspoons garam masala
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup cream
• Salt and pepper to taste

In a large pot, heat two tablespoons of oil over medium heat.  Cook onion until golden, about 20 minutes.  Meanwhile, blot tofu dry with a paper towel, and slice into half inch thick pieces.  Heat a tablespoon of olive oil over medium high heat in a griddle.  Place strips of tofu onto the griddle, allowing them to crisp on both sides.  Set tofu aside.  When onion is ready, add three tablespoons of ginger, a tablespoon of garlic, 3 tablespoons tomato paste, two teaspoons garam masala, and 1/2 teaspoon chili powder, and cook until fragrant, about 3 minutes.  Add one cup of water, 1/2 cup of cream, and tofu.  Allow everything to heat through and add salt and pepper to taste.  

We had to start before the eggplant was finished because OUR OVEN BROKE.  This house is seriously cursed.  The bathroom doesn't work and now the kitchen.  yikes.  But this was delicious.  And once we put the eggplant back into the other oven it turned out pretty good too (though I would usually salt my eggplant before cooking it - I think I would do that if I made it again).  

I know it's not going to win any beauty pageants, but I think you'll find all the dishes are perfectly delicious together.  Everything was slightly sweet, which complemented our chocolate Easter eggs perfectly!

Happy Easter!

Nick bought me a mini tripod the other day and today I insisted we take a family portrait when we took Heidi for her walk.  I put on a pretty top and skirt, and then realized it was freezing outside.  I think I do this every single Easter.  It's always colder than I want it to be.

But I still insisted we make an attempt.  We only got one shot before one of Heidi's friends showed up and she was totally out of commission.  Hopefully we can try again when it's warmer and we can wear pretty spring clothes!

We didn't think this was Heidi's best angle, so we took off her new gentle leader (great for stopping her pulling) and Nick took a picture of us and my new purple rain boots!  Love them!

Trying to set up a tripod and get into the picture before the countdown is over is pretty tricky.  We need to make a photographer friend to get a good shot!

We've been spring cleaning and eating egg salad in true Easter fashion the rest of today.  We also went on a wild goose chase yesterday to get lots of Easter candy for each other but didn't have much luck.  I was seriously missing Walgreens as we trolled multiple supermarkets and could ONLY find large stocks of Cadbury eggs (sister Dani, you would be in cadbury egg heaven).  I'm sorry but there is SO much more to Easter than cadbury eggs.... like peeps, for example.  Peeps are MY favorite Easter candy.  However, I have two major problems with peeps...

1. Peeps are nowhere to be found in England

2. Peeps are NOT vegetarian

But I found a recipe on Martha's website!! God love her, and I am going to make them myself.... except Nick won't let me until I get a candy thermometer.  (He says it will be a disaster and I kinda believe him).  I would love to go out and get one, but the bus only runs once an hour on Sundays, and the shops closed at 4pm... oh life in the country..  But my dear readers and vegetarian peep lovers, I promise you that I will be producing lots of peeps sometime before the week is up.  You have my word!

Styrofoam Ceilings and Hidden Chimneys

Maybe I am a glass-half-empty kinda girl - OK I'm definitely a glass-half-empty kinda girl, but I believe that you have to take the good with the bad.  In this case, the good is we are moving!  The bad - we are moving a lot sooner than we anticipated and we have a lot of work to do to prepare this house for renting.  And by we I mean me because I'm unemployed and highly skilled at all things DIY, non?

Well the other day I was taking down this Styrofoam ceiling that was put up maybe 50 years ago to add insulation to the house.  It has to be taken down now, because of renting regulations that claim it is a fire hazard. Safety first people!

So I put my Martha Stewart DIY home decorator extraordinaire hat on and I get busy, as Kelly Leighs often do.  The problem is, Martha makes home improvement look so easy.  But its just so not easy.  I mean I'm stripping this shit off the ceiling, my arm is dying, and all of a sudden, my scraper hits a hard spot.  I keep at it and what do I reveal....

An old chimney!!

They'd covered the hole with what appears to me to be a small paper plate - and had they bothered to remove the ashes?  Of course not!  When I knocked that little plate out of place I gave myself an ash shower!  I looked like a damn chimney sweep.  I feel like these things just don't happen to Martha.

I guess thats why my Dad made me watch This Old House all the time growing up.  He had the show preprogrammed on the TV so the channel would switch whenever it was on.  Sooooo annoying.  He insisted that the information would come in handy one day.  Can't say I remember how do anything from the show, but I will admit Norm gave me much more realistic expectations for home improvement projects.  They never go according to plan!